Although President Lyndon B. Johnson often bragged that his great-great-grandfather had died at the Alamo, in fact it was his great-great-uncle John W. Bunter who had served in the Texas Revolution, and not at the Alamo but at San Jacinto, which he survived.

In January 1915, in the midst of the First World War, the German Navy submitted an budget request that postulated its expansion to 81 battleships and battelcruisers by 1931.

During the French movement of troops to Italy in 1859, some critics claimed that the use of railroads would so “pamper” the men that they would be unfit for combat.

Through the 1990s, the “typical” recruit in the U.S. Army was 20 years old, had a high school education (92-percent), came from a family that earned less than $50,000 a year (94-percent), was not married (88-percent), and was most likely from a two-parent household (62-percent).

The first American patrol into “No Man’s Land” in France appears to have occured on November 5, 1917, and was led by Maj. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the son of the former president.

The wearing of the traditional red coat by the line infantry of the British Army only became obligatory in 1742.

The first operational use of a balloon in support of a military operation occurred on June 2, 1794, when the new French Army aerostat service supported the artillery of the Army of the North at Maubuege.

The movement of supplies and munitions for the British punitive expedition into Tibet in 1904 required 10,000 human bearers, plus 7,000 mules, and 5,000 bullocks, not to mention 4,000 yaks, but apparently no yetis.